Hells Angels control Niagara drug market: Former member

A Hells Angels member-turned-informant has warned that anyone who dares to sell cocaine in the Niagara Region faces certain death from the biker gang, a Superior Court judge said today.

Stephen Gault, former secretary of the Angels' Oshawa chapter, made the comment while testifying at the drug trial of Gerald "Skinny" Ward, Justice John McMahon said in reading his judgment convicting Ward of having proceeds of crime, trafficking in cocaine and benefitting a criminal organization.

Ward, 60, the executive and founding member of the Angels' Niagara chapter, will be sentenced Feb. 27.

"They (Angels) have complete control in the whole Niagara region. Anyone who steps in there, they'll kill him pointblank," McMahon quoted from the testimony of Gault, who was paid more than $400,000 in compensation as a police agent.

"You don't play with their game ... all their lives are built upon drug dealing," Gault was quoted as saying in his testimony while explaining the inner workings of the biker gang.

Gault testified that people join the Angels for "the power of the patch" - which provides them protection - but must pay the club 10% of their criminal proceeds and monthly dues for a legal defence fund for those facing prosecution. Members must vow not to cheat anyone on drug deals, court heard.

The judge ruled today Ward was directing the sale of cocaine to Gault for the bikers.

As a police agent, Gault made 27 drug buys from various gang members, including four that involved Ward between May 2005 and Sept. 28, 2006. Gault conducted the transactions using police buy-money and helped with body-pack intercepts and police surveillance, court was told.

No full-patch members actually touched the drugs, instead they were delivered by Angels' "hang-arounds, associates and prospects" - people vying to join the club, the judge said.

Ward was aware that Gault was a "full-patch member of the HAMC, although he was unaware that Gault was a police agent at the time," Justice McMahon said in his judgment. Ward's lawyer adamantly denied that the motorcycle club is a criminal organization.

Ward was one of the last men to be snared in a massive police investigation dubbed Project Tandem, which targeted biker chapters in Oshawa, Windsor and Niagara regions. The street value of the drugs seized was about $3 million - including 10 kilos of cocaine, two kilos of pure crystal meth, 50,000 Ecstasy pills, eight kilos of marijuana and a kilogram of hashish.

Twenty four people were charged, 15 of them members of the Hells Angels. The most serious offenders were sentenced to the equivalent of five to eight year prison terms.